Why everyone needs a Gmail account (even if you don't want to use it for email)

It's come to my attention that there are a few people out there who don't have, or don't really use their Gmail accounts, which is kind of astounding to me considering how vastly superior (in my opinion at least) the Gmail interface is to every other web-mail offering I've seen. But beyond that, there are so many ways one can use a gmail account. How many, you ask? More than I can count, probably, but here are some ways that I use Gmail.

1. Online disk storage: These days, I rarely need to use a USB flash disk to transport files from one computer to another, because I can just email it to myself at my Gmail address. Why would I do this? Well I forget to bring my flash disk around with me sometimes. Also your Gmail account is protected with a password. How many of you out there can at the same about your flash disks? (Incidentally, if you DO want to protect your flash drive, you can encrypt your data, and I'm sure there are several password protection apps out there available for USB flash drives...). Also, you can't physically lose a gmail account, but I know people who have lost several flash drives. Plus Gmail is 2GB of free storage while 2GB flash drives cost a pretty penny. Working on a computer that's not connected to the internet? Well, fine, you still need a drive for that. But, honestly, how often does that happen? (Incidentally, Yahoo! recently announced that it was going to provide unlimited storage for Yahoo! Mail accounts, so in this regard, Yahoo! Mail edges out Gmail for pure storage.)

2. Email archive: [This idea came from Eric originally.] How often have you needed to refer back to one particular email, only to find that it's buried in the 457 emails you allow to ferment in your inbox? Or maybe you do try to keep your emails organized by putting them into different folders... now did I put that email about the Project X in the Project X folder, or the John Smith folder? With Gmail's search engine, finding that particular email is a easy as figuring out what search string to use. I usually just search for the person who sent it. No more digging around in folders or staring at a screenful of emails.

Many folks have email accounts that only allow for limited storage space. If you can poke around in your email settings and redirect (sometimes also called "forwarding," but it's different from the kind of forwarding you do when you pass an email on to someone else from within the email program) all of your email to Gmail, then you have an automatic backup of every email you ever received.

If you're really ambitious, you can also try to have all the emails that you send from non-Gmail accounts also sent to Gmail account, so your Gmail account becomes a complete record of all your email correspondence. You can do this manually for every email you send simply by adding your Gmail address in the BCC field of any email you send. However, some email programs will allow you to set it up so that it will automatically do it for you (if you need help with this, let me know in the comments or contact me directly).

3. BlackBerry Lite: Don't have a BlackBerry (or Treo), but you want to be able to check your email on your mobile phone? No problem! Scoff at Blackberry and Treo owners and their expensive gadgets by installing the Gmail Mobile application to your Java-enabled phone. It's actually been a long time since I've played around with a non-smartphone phone, so I don't know how prevalent phones with web browsers are, but I figure there a lot of people out there who don't have CrackBerries or Treos or some other smartphone device who could benefit from this little tidbit.

I actually use the Gmail Mobile application on my BlackBerry, even though I receive all of my emails in the native BlackBerry messaging application. "Why?" you ask? See #2 above. It's great. My entire email archive wherever I go.

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Anyway, there are ton more uses for Gmail. I think I'll save them for now. Many of them are kind of involved and really more for hard-core Gmail users. If you really want to explore some more advanced uses for Gmail, check out Steve Rubel's article on how he uses Gmail as his Personal Nerve Center.